Campaign to follow Uncle Ho’s moral life

The “Study and follow Ho Chi Minh’s moral example” campaign has made great impacts on society and gained important initial outcomes, said Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh.

The Party Chief, who is also the Head of the Central Steering Committee for the campaign, made the affirmation at the committee’s meeting in Hanoi on Nov. 26.

According to Manh, the campaign has continuously created clearer and stronger changes in work styles of Party members and State officials and raised their sense of following the late President’s example in the field.

The campaign has also helped drive back degradation in political ideology, ethics and lifestyle of Party members, State employees and the entire society, said the Party Chief.

He emphasised that the campaign had contributed significantly to the country’s accomplishment of socio-economic tasks as well as to building the Party purely and strongly and organising the party committee congresses at all levels successfully to prepare for the Party’s XIth National Congress.

Steering Committee members agreed that after four years of implementation, the campaign had become an important facet of all operations of the Party, the administration, and mass organisation at all levels, and made positive changes in awareness in Party members and people.

They also underlined the need to create a high level of consensus in the Party and the entire political system, firstly with those who hold key positions in all branches at all levels, on the significance, importance, goals, requirements, content and responsibility regarding the implementation of the drive.

In addition, they said the content of the campaign must be specific and combined closely with political tasks in each period and stressed the necessity to step up the spread of information on Uncle Ho’s moral example and outstanding individuals in the campaign./.

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HCMC youth join campaign to promote green lifestyles

Miss Grand Slam Asia 2009 Tran Thi Huong Giang joins students on Green Day by helping to paint a giant picture. — VNA/VNS Photo Van Dat

HCM CITY — More than 300 students in HCM City on Sunday took part in activities for the International 350 Day for Climate Change.

Together with millions of people around the globe, they raised their voices about climate change and environment protection.

The students made a painting of five-by-five metres, and 260 small paintings that were combined to depict the number 1,000 in celebration of Ha Noi's millenium anniversary.

The group also made a short video clip depicting their strong engagement in green living.

Copenhagen

The young people said the clip would be sent to an up-coming Copenhagen Climate Conference to be held in November in Mexico.

Nguyen Dinh Vu An, a student of the University of Economics and Finance, said students who attended this event would have to be committed supporting the 26-degree Celsius campaign which encourages everyone to save energy and reduce greenhouse gases. "We will have vegetarian meals at least twice a month and not eat venison to protect wild animals. We will also try to increase the number of vegetarian meals because it is good for our health," An said.

The students also composed paintings that showed opposition to smoking.

The event was held by the university's newly founded People and Environment (P&E) Club and the Sai Gon 350 Club.

"This is not a big campaign, but we hope our voice will affect everyone. I want Viet Nam to raise its voice in international environment conferences," said Ngo Nu Huyen Trang, a member of the Sai Gon 350.

"I hope our paintings will be shown at the up-coming Cop-enhagen Climate Conference 16 to be held in November, and that people realise that Vietnamese youth are enthusiastic about the environment."

More than 7,000 events took place in 188 countries for the 10/10/10 Global Work Party, the single largest day of carbon-cutting action in the planet's history.

The day of climate action was organised by 350.org in partnership with hundreds of organ-isations around the world.

Organisations and individuals working for the environment in Viet Nam organised about 50 activities around the country to protest behaviours that cause climate change, such as vegetarian campaigns in Ha Noi, tree plantings in Ha Tinh, bicycle campaigns in Hue and Da Lat, vegetarian campaigns in Da Nang, and others.

Political message

The goal of the day is to send a pointed political message: "If we can get to work, you can get to work too, on legislation and treaties that will make all our work easier in the long run," according to 350.org.

The campaign required bold energy policies from political leaders against climate change, the group said. — VNS

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City campaign promotes healthy lifestyles

Youth volunteers take part in clearing a lamp post on Pham Ngoc Thach Street in HCM City in response to the city's Civilised Urban Lifestyle campaign. — VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Vu

HCM CITY — The city's Civilised Urban Lifestyle campaign has over the last three years succeeded in improving civic sense and promoting a healthier lifestyle, participants said at a meeting on Sunday.

Chairwoman of the HCM City People's Council Pham Phuong Thao said most citizens were now more aware of the need to protect the environment.

Nguyen Minh Hoa of the HCM City University of Social Science and Humanity said it was not just major streets in urban areas but many roads in outlying districts that were also cleaner. He said the campaign had changed the attitude of many city dwellers.

Two activities targeted by the campaign – the burning and throwing of votive papers, as well as the selling of food outside school gates – had been reduced, he said.

Progress had also been made on other aspects of the campaign including compliance with traffic laws, preserving hygiene and protecting the environment, he added.

Dao Anh Kiet, director of the city's department of Natural Resources and Environment, said the task of garbage collection in the night had been done well, making the city cleaner.

Tran Vinh Tuyen, head of the District 1 People's Committee, said thousands of wastebaskets and 50 public rest rooms had been installed in downtown areas.

Binh Tan District, the newly established district, had also done well, although it was yet to complete all its infrastructure projects, the meeting heard. The district has upgraded 1,200 roads and another 1,800 streets will be upgraded by 2015.

More than 5,000 residents including Government workers, students and members of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union took part in a walk in HCM City on Saturday to support the "Days for civilised city" programme.

The event was organised by the Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper, the city chapters of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union and the Red Cross, as well as HCM City Television.

During the event, 40 bicycles were given to sanitation workers, 10,000 bus passes to Government employees and 60,000 environment-friendly bags distributed among other city residents. It was announced that four rest areas would be built on the HCM City – Cu Chi District route at a cost of VND400 million (US$20,000).

Members of the youth union later planted 1,500 trees along the Sai Gon River and in the Viet Nam National University of HCM City. They also collected trash from District 7's Tan Phu Ward and Cong Ly Bridge in Phu Nhuan District. The "1,000 clean and safe lamp posts" project was carried out in five central districts by removing notices. — VNS

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Measles campaign targets 7.5 mln children

A new campaign launched by the Ministry of Health, including two vaccinations against measles for children aged between nine and 18 months, will cover 7.5 million children nationwide from September 24, in an effort to cover at least 95 percent of the target population.

"More than 7,000 cases of measles were reported in 2009, that's why we've launched the campaign," said Nguyen Tran Hien, director of the National Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI).

The EPI campaign will especially focus on outlying provinces, and replace the previous policy that dates back to 2002, in which children previously received two measles vaccinations at nine months and six years of age.

Health experts explained that two vaccinations within nine months would increase resistance rates from measles to more than 95 percent.

However, health experts discovered that only 85 percent of children had been protected after receiving their first shot of measles vaccine.

The three-month campaign was part of a campaign to minimize outbreaks of measles by 2012, said Hien, who is also director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology.

About 15 percent of children under the age of six faced the risk of catching measles, and potentially acted as measles carriers, infecting other vulnerable groups, said Hien.

According to EPI statistics, the measles outbreak in 2009 was the largest since the country began a second round of booster vaccinations.

Four months after the first case was found, the outbreak spread to 57 provinces and cities, then to all 63 localities. However, no fatalities were reported. The measles infection rate focused mainly on 1-5-year-old and 18-26-year-old groups.

Priority will be given to implementing the campaign in mountainous and remote areas in northern provinces.

Measles vaccines, syringes and injection needles were provided by the World Health Organization through the United Nations Fund for Children.

According to EPI statistics, measles outbreaks occurred throughout the country, with more than 1,600 measles cases reported during the first eight months of 2010, of which nearly had 1,100 appeared in the south.

Vietnam has about 12 million of children aged below six years of age.

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Viet Nam begins new road-safety campaign

HA NOI — Viet Nam has launched a new campaign to strengthen road traffic safety, particularly drink-driving prevention, according to a press release from the World Health Organisation on Tuesday.

The campaign aims to raise public awareness regarding legal blood-alcohol levels for drivers and provide breathalysers to traffic police.

The first phase of the new programme will be carried out in the two northern provinces of Ha Nam and Ninh Binh by 2011.

The localities will be provided with financial and technical support to reduce drink-driving.

The WHO representative in Viet Nam, Jean-Marc Olive, says "Drunkenness is a major factor in traffic accidents in Viet Nam."

"Local research indicates that over 34 per cent of death rate for traffic accidents were associated with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) exceeding the legal limit," he said.

"Enforcement is one of the most effective interventions to minimise traffic accidents, particularly with drunk drivers," Olive said.

Than Van Thanh, the National Traffic Safety Committee's Chief Secretariat said: "The traffic safety law issued in 2008 ruled the legal BAC level for motorcyclists reducing it 80 to 50mg/dl blood."

"Decree 34 that took effect in May, introduced increased fines for drivers violating blood alcohol concentration levels," Thanh said.

The campaign is a part of a global road safety programme that is running in ten countries with particularly high levels of traffic accidents.

The campaign has the support of international partners including the Global Road Safety Partnership and Johns Hopkins University. — VNS

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